


A Midnight City Doused in Alcohol

by Bounteous



Category: Red Dead Redemption
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Confessions, Drinking, Early Days, Excessive use of the word fuck, F/M, Fluff, Gratuitous Smut, Imagine "Holiest" by Glass Animals is playing, Late Night Conversations, Mutual Pining, Needed but Heavy Exposition, Nighttime Escapades, Seductive Smoking (more than smoking has any goddamn right to be), Underage Drinking, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Until it isn't, Young John Marston, and the like, and then they smooch, because, i dunno, some shit happens and a man gets killed and it's all fine and dandy, the song just feels right ya know, two outlaw teenagers getting into big city trouble, who's awkward and angry and a melting pot of hormones, ya know
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-22
Updated: 2019-01-22
Packaged: 2019-10-12 13:47:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17468741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bounteous/pseuds/Bounteous
Summary: John Marston and the lovely, little you find trouble in the big, bad city and sexual exploration ensues.





	A Midnight City Doused in Alcohol

**Author's Note:**

> I have no fucking clue where this came from. But two sleepless nights later and here we are with a piece I'm actually proud of. You're welcome.
> 
> Tried to keep the reader as neutral as possible, with the exception of multiple implications of you being shorter.

City life was a mystery to you—enough so that it kept you on the brink of reckless curiosity like a moth to a flame. You didn’t understand it and it didn’t understand you, but damn if you weren’t capricious about every peculiar thing suited to your interests. People-watching, in particular, was a favorite past-time of yours.

Seventeen years is not, by any means, a very long time to have been living (depending upon, of course, what one’s definition of living is. In which case, you’d lived a hell of a lot more than most folk), but you’d witnessed your fair share of colorful persons. Strangers with their own perspectives and mechanical volitions, vastly different yet the similarities were boundless in their pointed conjectures.

Hosea might’ve been the only one who understood and appreciated your intuition and introspection. Dutch too, though he focused on the how and the when and the where to use such a talent rather than marvel in the idiosyncrasy. And, for that, you appreciated Hosea as well.

Arthur tried, bull-headed as he may be, but you didn’t blame him because, what others saw as a poorly obstinate man, you saw as a perfectly kinesthetic learner. He’ll think as profoundly as any great philosopher as soon as tangibility is within grasp. _That’s what his journal’s for,_ said Hosea, _so his thoughts can flourish as they are meant to._ But your mind wasn’t tangible, therefore he couldn’t quite grasp the way you were.

John, bless him, kept you at arm’s length in the beginning. Ripe at the age of understanding not understanding and finding nihilism take precedence at the forefront of the mind. A repeated mantra of _why bother on a wasted effort?_ A challenge you didn’t know you’d accepted at the time.

The first few months were tentative at best, the air between you two, created solely by him, palpable, and you wondered when he would get over such a childish grudge. He never liked being the youngest of the Van der Linde Gang and now he wasn’t, by barely a year. It was anger created by jealousy created by a deep sense of fear that he would soon lose his prized position in the hierarchy he’d conjured up in his mind. Conjured when the epiphany of what specifically it was about sour Arthur Morgan that both compelled and rejected him suddenly exploded into a month’s worth of hormonal outbursts and refusals to speak.

Arthur had told the story through idle chatter around the campfire, so your mind filled in the gaps with a sense of theatricality even Hosea couldn’t top. You often asked John about his past despite his severe aversion to your entire being. However, you’d likened yourself to the Colorado River carving the Grand Canyon—eventually, he’d cave under the wearing away of his disposition. That, you were certain, even after three years of stagnant maturity and daily side-eyes.

Now here you were, amidst a booming city you’d never seen the likes of before and a buffet of opportunities to be savored. It left you overwhelmed in the best possible way, like a relapse of addiction or the way you suppose Dutch feels after a successful heist. The sights and the sounds and the smells grabbed you by the lapels of your jacket and strung you along like some kind of puppet.

That’s how you found yourself here: sat at a saloon table, with Arthur and John, made of fine mahogany with matching chairs and an expensive-looking array of dishware. High-society found even at the cheapest bar in the city. The patrons, however, were as rowdy as the ones back in your uncivilized, home state of Arizona. And that enticed you all the same.

A bunch of drunken libertines, scantily-clad prostitutes, and working minorities all come together in celebration of some damn good booze. How much more American could you get?

“You don’t have to babysit me, you know? I’m not some little fucking kid anymore.” John’s voice seems to have forgone the sound of poorly-oiled wagon wheels in favor of a rasp like he smokes ten packs a day.

“You sure as shit act like one.” Arthur’s voice is the kind that lulls you to sleep at night on the rare instances you can convince him to read to you, deeply baritone with a hearty drawl that reverberates in your chest with steady reassurance.

The two men are stark contrasts brought together on satirically unextraordinary circumstances, and you, the middleman, are here to reign them in when their brotherly affections inevitably get _too_ out of hand. All according to Dutch and Hosea, of course, when you’d asked to go touring.

“You look like you could show a girl a good time.” Her voice, a sultry mix of perfected confidence and faux want, sifts through the air like cigarette smoke, curling around Arthur in a seductive embrace.

Before he can express his rejection, you beat him to the punch with that impetuous wit you can never seem to control, “So do you. I’ll pay you an extra five if you show me around the city and tell me how great of a lover I am.”

She laughs, charmingly and truly, equal parts flattered and amused at your quick-silver tongue. “I may just take you up on that, missy.”

When she walks away with an implicative wink and a blow of a kiss, it’s John who asks the million dollar question, “What the fuck was that?”

You sigh dramatically with a big roll of your eyes, taking the beer bottle from his lips to yours, “Why do you have such an affinity for ruining moments?”

He has the gal to look offended. “That weren’t a moment! That was you unable to shut the fuck up again!”

“At least I don’t so easily fall prey to their looks and empty promises. I wouldn’t be surprised if you’ve had more whores in bed than Bill at this point!”

He lunges across the table at that, a thrashing of dirty fingers and a snarling like that of a rabid animal, held back by an exasperated Arthur.

“I fucking swear, you two.” A rough shove puts John back into his mahogany seat, but the daggers in his eyes stay sharp. “I’m gonna get another drink, God knows I need it. Try to stay outta trouble, please.” And he walks away as eagerly as Hosea the Charlatan.

“Are you gonna stop staring at me like that?” you ask, noting John hasn’t once blinked and you’re surprised you aren’t bleeding out from multiple stab wounds now. A sharp puff of air, crossed arms, a turned head—how mawkish of him. “Oh yeah, go ahead and scoff like the arrogant, little shit you are.”

“Yeah, you-you-you arrogant, little sssssshit.” This voice sounded magnificently intoxicated, frayed at the edges with ill-timed mockery and undulating slurs. Up Poor bastard.

John’s up fast as lightning in the sky, mahogany chair propelling backward in an almighty crash. “You wanna fucking shut up, mister?’

“You wanna fucking shut up, mister?” the man, ordinary as can be, mimics farcically.

He smiles, big and wide and like the rightest idiot, seemingly unable to comprehend this current predicament in his inebriated state.

Seeing them standing there nose to nose, polar opposite in every physical way, you just can’t help yourself. “You gonna kiss him or what, Marston?”

“Stop instigating. Jesus, I’m gone for all of two seconds.” Arthur pushes them apart, ignoring the drunk in favor of giving John his infamous look of purely exasperated disappointment and irritation.

“Oh, I get it now!” exclaims the drunk, pointing a shaky finger in John’s general direction, “You’re some kinda queer, ain’t you? Waiting for your man to come and save you.”

A second of tense silence ensues before John makes the single most rash decision of his entire eighteen years of living. In the scramble of an obviously one-sided not-fight (because it takes a single punch from John’s white-knuckled fist), the man plummets to the floor along with the mahogany table in a pathetic heap.

He doesn’t get back up. He doesn’t even move. In fact, he doesn’t even seem to be breathing.

“Oh my fucking God,” you gasp, all wide eyes and panic. The killing is not new. The killing of a relatively innocent man in a large public setting is.

When Arthur bends to lift the man’s head and finds a bloodied and broken glass bottle beneath it, the three of you collectively mutter your personalized string of choice curses.

“Shit, okay, alright. Um…” He scrambles around his head for a quick solution. “You two get outta here, run. ‘Specially you, John. Make yourself scarce, go on! Quick!”

In response, John does the exact opposite. “What the fuck are you gonna do?”

“I don’t know! But you was the one fighting him and you’re-” He points to you. “a minority still.”

“Let’s just go, you dumbass,” you whisper, pulling on his shirtsleeve towards the back exit, “I imagine the law’ll get here faster than in some boomtown, for sure.”

Barely out the door, he wretches his arm from your grasp as you both book it down the alley. The buildings obstruct the moonlight, casting harsh shadows across the cobblestone beneath your feet, and there’s no convenient gaslight to lead you on your way. So you do the honorable thing and shove him in front of you because you can’t see shit.

“Where the fuck am I supposed to go?” he whispers brusquely into the humid air.

You shove him forward still. “I don’t fucking know. Somewhere. Find an abandoned building or something. There should be lots of those, right?” You can feel him roll his eyes at you.

“Yeah...lots. Sure.”

Two dumb yokels wandering around and clearly lost as all hell must be amusing to any passersby. Honestly, if the situation were reversed you’d probably be too. Though you stick to back alleyways as a precaution and blatantly ignore the few bystanders you come across. Logically speaking, you know they couldn’t give a rat’s ass because you are, in fact, two dumb yokels.

“What the hell is this?” you suddenly shout, startling John into further annoyance at your inattentiveness, which is a more pleasant way to say that your mind can’t fucking focus on one thing for more than a minute.

When he turns around, he physically has to stop himself from pulling out his gun and shooting himself right then and there. “Women’s underclothes,” he deadpans, hating that he’s not even mildly shocked at your discovery.

‘Yeah, but—” you pull them from the clothesline, “they don’t got no crotch!” You hold up the garment, pulling on the opening until John’s nonplussed expression can be seen through.

He grabs them from your hands, throwing them to the side where they land ungracefully in a dirty puddle, pulling you along like a disciplined child, and you have half a mind to find offense as the other half occupies itself with ridiculous humor in his reaction.

“Could you stop giggling like a drunk—” He cuts himself off as abruptly as those drivers when robbing stagecoaches.

“What the—” The rest of your words are muffled under his hand as he pushes you back against the damp brick.

A solitary finger raises to his lips. Voices of varying degree, agitated and angry, echo from just around the corner. Their conversation, while nameless, clearly alludes to John and the ‘incident’.

You jerk your head, so he removes his hand from potentially suffocating you to rest on the wall alongside. You find his body to be unnecessarily close, feel his breath skim along your forehead and his knee push between your thighs. But voices don’t go away. They get closer.

In a panicked scramble, you pull him with you through a door and suddenly the situation has become reversed. Although, it takes a few taut moments of statuesque stillness for either one of you to register the current circumstances. The men move on, habitually unobservant and blinded by exaggerated pique, before you realize your intimate position.

You wrench away from him like you were just struck. “What the fuck are we supposed to do now?”

He shakes his head, physically ridding himself of an onslaught of strange emotions, before looking around the dark space. “S’pose we stay here for the time being.”

“Well, what about Arthur?”

“Look,” he shouts, as frustrated as Dutch used to be with him, “it’s the middle of the fucking night and I’m tired of sneaking around!”

You leave him alone to fume to his heart’s content, walking around the dusty building. It’s dark and the walls are severely lacking in windows but, with the striking of a match, the room is bathed in an orange glow.

A mumble of thanks to John for lighting a lantern, your gaze settles around the room you two are now occupying for the night. Small, minimal furniture, obviously deserted—it’ll do. Satiating your curiosity, you head up the narrow staircase, steps creaking with every wandering footfall. Nearly identical to the room below with the exception of a bed and bathing area, it’s lackluster in every sense of the word.

Although, the double doors leading to what you so desperately hope is a balcony does pique your curiosity again. _And a balcony it is_ , you think as you push open the white, wooden doors. You gasp small in your throat.

“John!” you shout, and there’s quick scrambling up the stairs and the cocking of a gun when he appears.

“What, what’s wrong?”

“You gotta look at this view.” Your voice has turned into a dreamy pitch, all soft sighs and whispers.

“Are you serious?” He reholsters his revolver with a roll of his dark eyes, moving to stand beside your frame regardless. “All I see is black clouds of soot and trashed streets.”

“But the stars, look at the stars.” You lean over the railing, arms crossed and head lolling to the side like you’re a child of five again, full of wonderment and naivety. “And the light from the shops down the way there.”

“Right…” He strikes another match, lighting a cigarette and leaning back against the railing. Evocatively so, the smoke curls around his lips, strokes his cheeks, billows up past his nose, up into the expanse of the night above them.

There’s an odd kind of tranquility to be found in the sounds of a city. Horses trotting, carriages rolling, people chattering. Common otherwise, yet somehow different when the roads become paved and the buildings taller and the people plenty. John would know. Even if he won’t admit so, he understands your fascination. And, even if he won’t admit so, he himself finds a certain fascination in you for that.

He takes a longer drag and looks over at you, lost in your own thoughts and dreams. A strange temptation overcomes him, but he shakes his head, willing it away to the farthest reaches of his mind.

A throat clear, to steady himself. “Think I saw a bottle of wine downstairs. Something to pass the time?”

Your eyebrows furrow at that. “How old is it?”

A shrug. “I don’t know. Isn’t it supposed to get better with age?”

“I guess.”

Enough of a yes for him.

When he returns you’ve set up two chairs just inside the doorway, occupying one to still enjoy the outside.

“S’pose we could’ve pretended to be rich folk if the glasses weren’t dirty.” He sits down in the other and pops open the cork with practiced ease.

You smile at that. “Oh, a bottle’s just fine.”

Companionable silence settles between you two for the first time in the three years you’ve been stuck together. Passing the alcohol back and forth with each generous sip, it’s nice. The wine, however? Mediocre at best.

“Can’t believe we ain’t arguing for once,” you speak up.

The warm breeze ruffles John’s mop of black hair.

“Arthur would probably call it a miracle.”

A sudden question nags at you, screaming and crying, and your mouth opens to let it out before your brain has the sense to repudiate, “How come you don’t like me none?”

He tenses, bottle halting midway to his lips, and he takes a few to answer, “It’s not that I don’t like you.”

“Then what?” You’re not angry, just annoyed that whenever you get too close he pulls himself away far out of reach.

A sigh. “Just...things. Things you don’t know nothing about.”

“Well, maybe if I did I wouldn’t accidentally make you so upset all the damn time,” you huff, inured. “I like you, and you know lots about me. Ain’t fair.”

At the very least, he has the decency to look ashamed at your revelation.

“I-I…” He struggles. “I do like you! It’s just…”

“Just what?”

He groans into his hands, covering his face to hide his reddening cheeks. “Just...more than just in a...friendly way…”

He mumbles the last part, though you hear it clear as a sunny day in New Austin. It has your heart pounding beneath your ribcage and a smile spreading across your cheeks. _Who would’ve guessed…_

“John Marston,” you laugh, relieved, “do you wanna kiss me?”

His head shoots up, eyes as wide as saucers and red blossoming down his neck. “No! No, I-that wouldn’t be proper! Ungentlemanly of me to...take advantage of you...like that.”

“Is it,” you start, reaching over to grab his hand gently, “if I want you to?”

Surprise crosses over his face, but he concedes with the reassurance you return. Tentatively, his lips close over yours, chapped and warm and tasting of white wine. You relish in the sensation, pushing back eagerly, and he responds in kind with earnest. You move to straddle his lap, unbreaking and unrelenting, and it turns into a mess of teeth and tongue. But a moan from low in your throat has him pulling away with a heaving chest.

“What, why’d you stop?”

That’s when you notice his hard-on, straining against his jeans and pushing against your clothed core. Desire pools in your stomach faster than anticipated, so you reach down with a sure hand before John’s own grasps your wrist. “Wait, you don’t have to.”

“It’s okay,” you mumble, palming the bulge and squeezing slightly, eliciting a small gasp from him.

You unzip his pants, his member springing free and your thighs clench involuntarily. A hiss follows when your fingers wrap around it, a reflexive shudder to cold against heat. A slow, languid stroke from top to bottom and back up again, and John’s head lands against your shoulder. You repeat the motion, faster and tightening your grip, pumping hazardly with the shudder of his hips

He grabs your wrist again, holding in a moan. “Wait, don’t want to...just yet.” He hopes you understand his implication.

You do. “Yeah, okay...um, should we move to the bed then?” But when you move to get, he grips your hips and stands up himself with your legs around his waist. “John!” you giggle.

“Shouldn’t make a lady walk all the way over there by her lonesome,” he chuckles, setting you down on the edge.

Leaning down, stood between your thighs, his lips meet yours sweet as candy, hands sliding into your hair and cupping your jaws.

“Think we’re bit overdressed for such an occasion,” you joke in between kisses, hands fisted into his shirt.

He relents, taking your hand and pulling you to stand. Mutual understanding passes between you and you begin unbuttoning his shirt as he undoes your skirt. It flutters to your feet into a pool of yellow as your hands press against his chest, roving over skin and pushing away the fabric until it, too, flutters to the floor. Your shirt and his pants follow in a show of sensual movements and looks, soft and slow, until you’re both standing naked across from one another.

You take the lead, reaching a hand up around his neck and into his hair, pulling him down for a languorous kiss as you shift back onto the bed. A hand trails up your side, over your stomach, cupping a breast—you gasp at the contact, and he breaks the kiss to trace across your exposed neck.

Letting go of your breast, his hand drags down to your heat with sparks lingering in the residual path. A finger teases the folds before pushing in, and you moan, audibly, at the sensation. His ministrations, white hot and blinding with a barrage of feeling, evoke obscenities from your lips.

“God, John, just..fuck me, please.” A harsh whisper interrupted with gasps and groans.

The feelings and the sensations, all it stops before the tip his cock pushes in one, fluid motion and has your back arching off the bed. John moans into your ear, head falling to the pillow and warm puffs of breath tickling your shoulder. The first thrust has your arms locking around his torso for support, the second has his name falling from your lips in prayer.

When he finds a rhythm, he lifts his head to look you in the eyes and you see a swirl of new emotions within his own. It has your heart swelling in the most perfect way, the scene above you, dark hair framing his face and that _look_ he’s giving you right in this moment.

It pushes you, and he whispers praises and reassurances as you fall apart with a cry. With a few, over-stimulating pumps more, he pulls out and releases in spurts over your stomach. You stay there, in that position, catching your breath and letting the realization of events wash over you.

Wiping you down with the edge of the blanket, he crawls over you, resting his head along your collarbone above your breast and an arm over your stomach. The scene is so blissfully intimate it leaves you as breathless as your first kiss with the man currently clinging to you in post-sex contentment.

You hand rakes through his hair, absently scratching his scalp. “Hosea and Dutch and Arthur are gonna wonder what happened between us.”

He only mumbles against your shoulder, eyes shut in utter relaxation, “They’ll probably figure it out.”


End file.
